The Reverend
The Reverend is an honorific style given before the names of certain Christian clergy and ministers. There are sometimes differences in the way the style is used in different countries and church traditions. The Reverend is correctly called a style, but is sometimes referred to as a title, form of address, or title of respect.[1] The style is also sometimes used by leaders in other religions such as Judaism and Buddhism.[2]
The term is an anglicisation of the Latin reverendus, the style originally used in Latin documents in medieval Europe. It is the gerundive or future passive participle of the verb revereri ("to respect; to revere"), meaning "[one who is] to be revered/must be respected". The Reverend is therefore equivalent to The Honourable or The Venerable. It is paired with a modifier or noun for some offices in some religious traditions: Lutheran archbishops, Anglican archbishops, and most Catholic bishops are usually styled The Most Reverend (reverendissimus); other Lutheran bishops, Anglican bishops, and Catholic bishops are styled The Right Reverend.[3][4][5]
With Christian clergy, the forms His Reverence and Her Reverence are also sometimes used, along with their parallel in direct address, Your Reverence.[6] The abbreviation HR is sometimes used.[6]
Usage
[edit]In traditional and formal English usage it is still considered incorrect to drop the definite article, the, before Reverend. In practice, however, the is often not used in both written and spoken English. When the style is used within a sentence, the is correctly in lower-case.[7] The usual abbreviations for Reverend are Rev., Revd and Rev'd.
The Reverend is traditionally used as an adjectival form with first names (or initials) and surname (e.g. The Reverend John Smith or The Reverend J. F. Smith); The Reverend Father Smith or The Reverend Mr Smith are correct though now old-fashioned uses.[4] Use of the prefix with the surname alone (The Reverend Smith) is considered a solecism in traditional usage.[citation needed]
In the 20th and 21st centuries, it has been increasingly common for reverend to be used as a noun and for clergy to be referred to as being either a reverend or the reverend, or to be addressed as Reverend or, for example, Reverend Smith or the Reverend Smith. This has traditionally been considered grammatically incorrect on the basis that it is equivalent to referring to a judge as being an honourable or an adult man as being a mister.[8][9] It is likewise incorrect to form the plural Reverends. Some dictionaries,[10] however, do place the noun rather than the adjective as the word's principal form, owing to an increasing use of the word as a noun among people with no religious background or knowledge of traditional styles of ecclesiastical address. When several clergy are referred to, they are often styled individually (e.g. The Reverend John Smith and the Reverend Henry Brown); but in a list of clergy, The Revv is sometimes put before the list of names, especially in the Catholic Church in the United Kingdom and Ireland.[11]
Male Christian priests are sometimes addressed as Father or, for example, as Father John or Father Smith. However, in official correspondence, such priests are not normally referred to as Father John, Father Smith, or Father John Smith, but as The Reverend John Smith. Father as an informal title is used for Catholic, Orthodox and Old Catholic priests and for many priests of the Anglican and Lutheran churches. Some female Anglican or Old Catholic priests use the style The Reverend Mother and are addressed as Mother.[citation needed]
In a unique case, Reverend was used to refer to a church consistory, a local administrative body. "Reverend Coetus" and "Reverend Assembly" were used to refer to the entire body of local officials during the transformation of the Dutch Reformed Church in the mid-18th century.[12]
The use of the Christian terms "Reverend" and "minister" for the rabbi of a congregation was common in Classical Reform Judaism and in the British Empire in the 19th and early 20th centuries, especially if the rabbi had attended a Western-style seminary or university rather than a traditional yeshiva.[citation needed]
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ "Reverend". LDoceOnline English Dictionary (definition) (online ed.). Longman. Archived from the original on 29 February 2012. Retrieved 24 October 2012.
- ^ "Reverend Earl Ikeda" Archived 29 December 2021 at the Wayback Machine, Tricycle: The Buddhist Review website.
- ^ The Lutheran Witness, Volumes 9-11. C.A. Frank. 1890. p. 67.
- ^ a b ""How to address the clergy", Crockford's Clerical Directory website". Archived from the original on 17 September 2016. Retrieved 16 September 2016.
- ^ ""How to Address Church Officials", Catholic Education Resource Center website". Archived from the original on 16 September 2016. Retrieved 16 September 2016.
- ^ a b "His/Your Reverence". Oxford English Dictionary. Archived from the original on 25 January 2018. Retrieved 17 December 2017.
1.2His/Your Reverence A title or form of address to a member of the clergy, especially a priest in Ireland. 'I regret, Your Reverence, that I cannot come to meet you.'
- ^ The Chicago Manual of Style (16th ed.), Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2010
- ^ Burchfield, RW, ed. (1996), The New Fowler's Modern English Usage, Oxford: Clarendon
- ^ "Information Internet: English Grammar, Abbreviations". Think quest. Archived from the original on 21 October 2012. Retrieved 24 October 2012.
- ^ "Reverend", Encarta (online dictionary), MSN, archived from the original on 15 February 2009, retrieved 6 February 2009
- ^ "Ecclesiastical and other information". The Catholic Herald. 6 June 1947. Archived from the original on 14 October 2018. Retrieved 13 October 2018.
- ^ Thompson, Henry Post (1882). History of the Reformed Church, at Readington, N. J. 1719-1881,. Board of publication of the Reformed church in America. doi:10.7282/T33F4QN7. ISBN 1131003942.
External links
[edit]
- . Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). 1911.